Here's how stocks performed under different Fed chairs - and how much influence Warsh really has

MW Here's how stocks performed under different Fed chairs - and how much influence Warsh really has

By Joy Wiltermuth

A look at stock-market performance under Fed chairs going back to the 1930s

Markets were mixed on Federal Reserve decision day Wednesday.

Every good story needs a main character.

This afternoon, Kevin Warsh is set to be that character as he holds his first press briefing as Federal Reserve chair. There are jitters about how stocks might react to anything he says about the path of interest rates, and whether he will encourage less communication from the U.S. central bank in the future.

Ahead of Warsh's first Fed meeting, all four major indexes - the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, the Nasdaq composite COMP and the Russell 2000 Index of small-cap stocks RUT - were briefly headed for their best Fed decision day since Dec. 10, 2025, according to Dow Jones Market Data. They have since turned mixed.

Yet a look at the S&P 500's SPX performance under different Fed regimes going back to the early 1930s suggests that Warsh and his predecessors typically have had less influence than historical events on the stock market, according to an analysis by Deutsche Bank.

"Consider Eugene Meyer grappling with the 1930s Depression, or Eugene Black and Marriner Eccles benefiting from their appointments in 1933 and 1934, respectively," Jim Reid, global head of macroeconomic research and thematic strategy at Deutsche Bank, wrote in a Wednesday client note.

"Arthur Burns, on the other hand, had to navigate the tumultuous shocks of the 1970s. Even Alan Greenspan faced a challenging initial period, with his tenure famously beginning in the weeks before the 1987 crash," Reid wrote.

Stocks were mixed but near record highs ahead of Wednesday's Fed decision. President Donald Trump has been vocal about wanting lower interest rates. But Warsh, Trump's pick to lead the Fed, isn't expected to make any immediate change to the central bank's short-term policy rate, given that inflation is running above 4%, well above the central bank's 2% target.

A look at recent history shows the S&P 500 was volatile on Fed decision days during Jerome Powell's tenure as chair. He led the U.S. central bank's emergency response to the 2020 pandemic, the subsequent rate hikes as inflation surged to a 40-year high and the path back down to more neutral rates in 2024 and 2025.

Since 2024, the S&P 500 has demonstrated a familiar pattern on Fed decision days: early gains followed by an afternoon selloff as the press conference got underway, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

Since 2024, the stock market tended to start higher on Fed decision days but to end the session lower after Fed Chair Powell's press conferences.

Mike DeStefano contributed.

-Joy Wiltermuth

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June 17, 2026 11:08 ET (15:08 GMT)

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